The Angler Chronicles
by Azure Wanderer
Summary: A contract killer with a deep past and no ties to these United States.
1. chapter 1

The barbed steel caught him in the lower back. A quick jerk on the gaff pole and the hook separated, line feeding out in stunted jerks as failing leg muscles attempted to carry their life-long passenger his last few steps.

To an outsider looking in this would present as very - what's the word the Americans use? Right, melodramatic. In defense of the man writhing on the floor, barring any physical defense which he is clearly lacking, the quick entry of a gaff hook into any region of the body would be exceptionally painful. Lucky for him…lucky? Right, lucky, the hook was well placed by yours truly, and he can no longer feel his lower half. Gaff hooks have a tendency to come out on top when pitted against a spinal cord, be that the spine of a tuna or a man. I am experienced with both.

Blood frothed at the man's lips, with each of his labored breaths spattering the dusty vinyl floor until it resembled the pocked wasteland on the other side of the dilapidated, peeling walls of The Red Rocket in Lexington. Pathetic, desperate whimpers were given weak birth in a gasping throat before dying out shortly after passing through cracked, stained teeth.

'Sid Carson. Been looking for you, friend.'

'F-friend? G-go to h-hell.'

'Full-time resident, Sid. Here's the thing, I have a contract and you're the mark. Questions aren't for me to ask and answers don't interest me. You know why you're face down on the floor of this shithole with a hook through your spine.'

'Fuck y-you.'

'Yeah, fuck me. Two options here. I can finish the job fast and it will be relatively painless, or I can leave you here to handle things in your own way. Your call,' I say, and the words feel like lies even as I speak them. What real choice does the man have? He won't live to see the sun break through the hazy, dust choked sky. Leaving him alive, however temporary that may be, would most assuredly end in a gruesome death delivered by the hands of my not so distant kin, scraping around in the adjacent, blown out building. I make the decision for him.

Firearms are not what I would consider tools of the trade for a fisherman, but in situations such as these I find them useful. As the oiled, silenced 10mm pistol makes its appearance, Sid's writhing ceases and his face becomes calm, resolute.

'Tired of waiting for me to decide? Or do you have some other fucking sop to hook,' he asks in a muted, mucous-thick voice.

'Truth be told, Sid, I'm not one to find pleasure in a mark's struggle. Ěryǔ here is going to make things easier for the both of us.'

'Ěryǔ?'

'In Chinese it means whisper,' I tell him as Ěryǔ's black, single eye comes level with Sid's own. Sid nods and closes his eyes, looking into his memories to find something of beauty, something to replace my ravaged face and the drab, filthy walls as the last thing he ever witnesses. I give him a few moments to search and when the corners of his mouth turn up in the slightest hint of a smile, Ěryǔ tells her secret.

The suffering isn't something I enjoy, not like those twisted fucking raiders with their cages, chems, and diseased orgies. Suffering is a part of life in the Wasteland and it's up to each individual to decide which side of that suffering they're going to be on. Me? I'm holding the flying gaff.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Mahkra Fish Packing to the immediate east. Parsons Creamery due west. The small settlement – if it can really be considered as such – Coastal Cottage, directly south. A shoreline and a small bunker where I can rest my feet. Leading a removed, isolated life in this line of work is paramount to anonymity and success. Silence, an ability to blend in, accurately reading the conditions of one's surroundings, and the proper approach are all necessary when stalking prey. After all of these factors are appropriately applied to a given situation, the tools of the trade come into play. Has the hook been cleaned? The line firmly affixed to the hook and the pole? Is necessary equipment available to fall back on in the event the preferred method fails? Has the right bait been selected for the job? Once all of the aforementioned criteria are met, I can drop my line in the water.

We were speaking of fishing, weren't we? No? No matter. The process is the same when taking a contract out on a new mark.  
The Angler. Not exactly a name I would have picked for myself, although the flying gaff does give it some credibility, but it stuck with the public. Or perhaps I should say 'publick'? Who else but that damned reporter from 'the great green jewel' would have coined such a cliché name? I'll let her live. Oh sure, there have been contracts taken out on her a dozen times or more but she isn't my sort of mark. I'll leave the killing of flies to the Diamond City security with their adorable little swatters. Besides, she helps keep me off the radar. Disappearances aren't always due to The Institute, but it doesn't hurt for the cow eyed citizens of the Commonwealth to blame those big, bad boogeymen. So write on, Piper, write on.

The Live-well. This name I chose myself, and I keep it personal. Suitable for an old fisherman's place to call home, wouldn't you say? Fishing may not be my trade these days, but the passion is still there. If not passion than nostalgia for what was, or a combination of the two. The Live-well is an old pre-war bunker about 20 feet underground with enough space for a single gentleman and his hobbies, not that I spend all that much time there. No, not much at all, thanks to man's insatiable thirst to spill the blood of his brother. After countless wars throughout history, after the dropping of the world's first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Great War and the destruction of the civilized world, man continues to destroy itself, bathed in the blood of its own and that is a thirst that will never be quenched. Am I a part of the problem? Perhaps, but opportunity has presented itself and we all have our place. Enough of this old man's ramblings. There is business at hand and the corpse of a settler in the cage next to me demands my attention. No, I didn't kill her. No, I didn't put her there either. Zain Masowitz did.

Zain Masowitz. Caucasian male. Age estimated between sixty and sixty-five. Lays his head down each night in a small house right outside of Bunker Hill. It wasn't difficult to find, and in all honesty I'm not sure anyone would be prone to go looking for it. This place is a fucking trash heap. Master Zain was a hired gun several years back providing protection, not sure that's what I would call it, to trading caravans on their routes in and out of Bunker Hill before a firefight with some super mutants left him permanently crippled. Taking a few rounds to the knee will do that to a person. According to my current employer's intel, the mark has gotten by doing odd jobs around the trading center since then and, more recently, has come down on some hard times. It would seem that our neighborly handyman abducted and imprisoned the wife of a shop owner. That was five weeks ago. Each week a dead drop is made of seven-hundred-fifty caps, and in return Zainy-boy leaves a handwritten letter from the shop keep's wife as proof that his beloved's lungs still suck air. The last drop saw a letter that was clearly written by another hand. Unfortunate someone recognized that the handwriting was oddly similar to the script on a shop sign that Masowitz had painted a few weeks back over in Bunker Hill, one of his odd jobs. Smooth, man, real smooth.

Enter the sorely missed wife of our current employer. She doesn't look to be injured, well, aside from the fact that she's fucking dead. No visible wounds, scrapes, or bruises. The clothing on her back clean by wasteland standards, a refuse bucket in the cage, bedroll, an empty bottle of antibiotics, and some water bottles and dirty plates. Hardly the sort of treatment expected from some of the wasteland's shadier denizens. The empty medicine bottle holds the answer to our poor damsel's demise, however irrelevant it may be. I have what I need. Masowitz dies tonight.

Patience. A most necessary attribute for both a fisherman and a contract killer. I've always been a patient man and making my living as an angler, no not 'The Angler', rather as a man of the sea, has only solidified my ability to sit in waiting. Feeling that nibble on the line, the tug that only the stupid, gaping maw of a fish can make, is an exciting experience, but knowing when to snap the line with the appropriate amount of force in order to set the hook is a honed ability that requires practice. The same lesson applies to striking your mark.

The front door scraping through the dust blanketing the floorboards of the house, opening just enough to admit the occupant entry before quickly returning to its jamb, cutting off the dull glow of the oil lamp out on the porch. Darkness. Thick, drawn curtains cover the haphazardly placed boards nailed across the windows, choking out any light that might try to slip in. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!' the words spat in thick staccato from Zain's lips as he fumbled with the door of his once precious hovel, now tomb.  
'Shit!' he hissed, as he cracked his damaged knee on the edge of an end table. A drawer being pulled open, shuffled through. The opening of a container as the contents within shift around. Scraping, short and rapid. A spark. Matches.

Now.

Quickly, I closed the distance between my hiding place next to the cage and Masowitz, coming to a stop with my face inches from his own, the man's focus still on striking a match. The gaff hook already in fluid motion, making its way over his shoulder, barbed point biting into the flesh at the back of his neck, anxious to kill but patient as penetration is halted just short of his spinal cord. A sharp, pain wracked cry.

'Good evening, Zain.'

'What the hell is this!?' he screams, pain and fear dripping from the words as they tumble from his mouth.

'This is a flying gaff. Currently, you have about two inches of barbed steel in the back of your neck. Struggle and I'll be sure to acquaint your spinal cord with my hook. Do you understand?'

He lightly nods, panic and poor lighting bloating the pupils of his eyes until they look like the mouth of a well, the lit match in his hand burning dimmer by the second as the matchstick turns to charred ash.

'Light another, now,' I tell him, and he complies.

A sharp intake of breath as my face is illuminated.

'A fucking ghoul?!' he exclaims, the pitch of his voice high like wind through reeds.

'Shi, a fucking ghoul.'

Forgive me for failing to mention this minor detail. What matter my anatomical situation in regard to a mark? Irrelevant. Although I will admit my appearance does add to the aura of fright and mystery surrounding my reputation. Ghoulification…but no, another time. I have a job to complete.

'You're…you're The Angler!'

'Shi, my impaled man, I am. What gave it away? Wait, don't tell me. The longshoreman's outfit, wasn't it? No? Damn, I thought for sure…no matter.'

His dried, crusty lips worked noiselessly as he failed to engage his vocal chords in order that he might form some semblance of a verbal response, staring wide-eyed in obvious surprise and disbelief at the casual manner in which I addressed him given the severity of our current situation.

'Zain, we both know why I'm here. Now, now, don't play daft with me. Have you nothing to say? Fine. Show and tell then. Fucking look at her. Look, Zain!' the intensity of my words sharpening as I directed him with the gaff hook as would a prod wielding farmer a brahmin, forcing him to move closer, to face the outcome of his actions. Weary, red-veined eyes welled with tears the moment they fell witness to the fate of his prisoner.

'I didn't…I never meant to…a-accident,' the pathetic quiver in his voice betraying the guilty regret of his mind, laying thick like the rubble strewn through the streets. 'S-sick. She got sick, I swear it. I tried to help her, the medicine, see? But it didn't work! She kept getting worse!'

'Yet you continued to keep her, forcing her to write letters as proof that she still lived. For ridged pieces of cheap, painted metal. For caps. Goodbye, Mr. Masowitz,' and so I set the hook.


End file.
